Refulgent...

[conuly]

So, I already knew the word effulgent from Buffy. It means shining. I looked it up. And today I'm reading this YA book - not even a terribly *good* one, and the girl goes along the whole book with her teenage superhero problems and hardly worries about school or grades at all, and then suddenly at the end she pulls out the word refulgent like it's a perfectly normal word for an adolescent to have at the tip of their tongues. Well, some adolescents, maybe, but the author hadn't previously impressed me with the depth of her character's vocabulary. Refulgent also means shining, in case you're wondering. I looked that one up too, just in case.

Is this actually another inchoate situation? Are these really commonplace words, and I'm behind the curve here? (Next I'll find out everybody's known the word contumely forever as well!)

Comments

[goss]

Heh. I've had "effulgent" in my vocabulary since I was about 6-7 years old, but only because it was part of a religious prayer thing we had to recite in school every morning. "Refulgent" I've never even heard of. :b

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be surprised if my kid knew refulgent in her adolescence, but she was and is a lingo-geek. I wouldn't expect most teens to know it.

Contumely, though - yes, everybody who's anybody has known it forever, because it's in Hamlet's big Soliloquy, beloved by angsty emo adolescents for centuries:

"For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?"

[conuly]

Ah, well I picked it up out of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, so... yeah.

[anastasis.livejournal.com]

I vaguely knew the meaning but don't think I've ever heard anyone use it before. And I had to look up "contumely."